


Formerly Follicularly Magnificent

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Series: Prompt Fills [42]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-24 05:47:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20353378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: Arriving for their usual Wednesday rendezvous, Clara is confused by the Doctor's mysterious refusal to appear from a well-chosen hiding place. After setting a trap and laying in wait, she receives a nasty shock...





	Formerly Follicularly Magnificent

**Author's Note:**

> From ThePurpleFrockCoat's prompt:
> 
> _Any chance you could write a drabble of Clara reacting to a bald 12th? (seems like her Doctors have both gone bald!)_
> 
> If you don't know what they're referring to then uh, [it's this.](https://twitter.com/PorgOnBoard/status/1162752609775685632?s=20)

“Hello,” Clara called brightly, stepping through the doors of the TARDIS and closing them behind her before dumping her satchel onto the floor with one hand, the other clutching the Tupperware box she’d so carefully carried from her flat to work that morning. Advancing several steps further into the console room, she looked around for her favourite Time Lord, frowning slightly as she found the room seemingly empty before carrying on in a loud, clear voice: “I’ve brought you a surprise. It’s an edible surprise – I _hope _it’s edible, anyway… it was edible the last time I made this.”

She looked around expectantly. Usually, the promise of food was enough to tempt the Doctor from wherever he happened to be hiding; last time, she had managed to coax him out from a week-long sojourn in the ventilation ducts with a homemade pizza, and he’d appeared with almost comical enthusiasm, covered head to toe in oil and clutching a spanner with a slightly manic expression. Setting the cake down on the edge of the console, she waited a moment, ears pricked for the sound of Doc Martened feet pattering towards her in eager excitement, but only silence pervaded – well, silence punctuated by the usual whirring, pulsing sounds of the TARDIS, coupled with the barely discernible sound of her own heart racing in her ears. Panic stirred faintly in her chest; had he had some kind of accident? Was he hurt? Was he trapped?

“Is he OK?” she asked the ship in a worried tone, pulling the screen towards her and hoping the TARDIS might deign to give her some information as to the Doctor’s location. Instead, she was met with a flurry of beeping that she knew from prior experience signalled amusement, tinged with a slight undercurrent of cattiness. Whatever had happened to the Doctor, the TARDIS found it funny, and this was both reassuring and worrying to Clara, who had been on the receiving end of the ship’s sense of humour. One encounter with a hologram leopard was not enough to make her appreciate the TARDIS’s attempts at being funny, although she sincerely hoped that the ship would show more lenience when it came to her pilot. She wasn’t sure the Doctor would enjoy facing down any big cats, holographic or otherwise. 

“He’d better not be hurt,” Clara muttered sourly, shooting the central column a warning look. “He’d better be alright.”

More amused beeping. 

This did not bode well. 

“Doctor?” Clara called more loudly, using her best teacher voice. She’d honed this particular tone after several years of shouting at Year 11s, and it had caused plenty of teenagers – and, indeed, fellow teachers – to quake. Perhaps it also worked on Time Lords; she could live in hope. “Where are you? Come out.”

“No,” came a faintly muffled reply from underneath her feet, and she jumped, swearing in shock as she realised that the Doctor had ensconced himself in the partially subterranean – sub-consolean, whatever – space underneath the central console. He was hidden from view by the metal of the flooring, and she resisted the urge to roll her eyes and go down there and chastise him. No, this had to be driven by him. She wasn’t about to go grovelling about in the dust and oil down there, not in her best French Connection work dress. 

“Why not?” 

“Can’t.” 

“What?” she frowned, not understanding. “What do you mean, you can’t? Are you hurt? Stuck?” 

“No,” he said more gruffly, and Clara could have sworn he sounded sheepish. “Just… can’t.” 

“Doctor, you’re not making any sense. What’s the matter? You’re scaring me.” 

“‘M fine,” he said in a high, tense voice. “Honestly, I’m fine, just… go home.” 

“I did not spend two hours making chocolate cake just to be sent home like a schoolkid with a dodgy hairstyle or a fixed-term exclusion,” she said sternly, drawing herself up to her full height before realising that he couldn’t see her. “Besides, it’s Wednesday. When have you ever let me down on Wednesdays?” 

“Since now.” 

“Why?” she asked with exasperation. “Why are you suddenly letting me down, Doctor? That’s not like you, and it’s weird, so why don’t you try explaining yourself?” 

“Can’t.”

“Right,” she said, the word carefully loaded as she bristled with anger. “You can’t – or won’t – come out, and you can’t – or won’t – explain. Do I have to guess? Do I have to… I don’t know, work out what the password is? Crack a riddle?” 

“You should go home. Really,” his voice was far more stern than it had been before. “Go on.” 

“I should… what?” Clara said in shock, blinking hard. He couldn’t mean that, surely? It was Wednesday; it was their day. He couldn’t be sending her home and bailing on their time-honoured tradition… could he? 

“Go home,” he said again, and the undercurrent of misery in his words was not enough to allay Clara’s sudden fury. “Please.” 

“I… you…” she stammered, too full of rage to form coherent sentences. If he wanted to behave like this – if he wanted to be all mysterious and frustrating and let her down – then that was his prerogative. She would go home, drink wine, and ignore him for a few days. She had a hefty chocolate cake to demolish; that would tide her over for the evening. “Fine.” 

Turning on her heel, she snatched up her Tupperware and her satchel and made to leave. 

“Urm,” he spoke again. “Could you leave the cake?” 

“You are just…” she resisted the urge to swear. “Unbelievable. Truly.” 

She set the cake down on the metal floor, then pushed the box with her toe towards the central console, before stepping out of the ship and making an extravagant show of closing the door behind her. She waited a couple of minutes – long enough, she reckoned, for the Time Lord to wriggle out of his hiding place and tuck into her cake – and then pushed the doors open again, stepping into the console room and letting out a shriek of horror. 

The Doctor was stood by the console with a slice of cake clutched in one hand, a blissful expression on his face. This was not, in itself, alarming; only where he had previously had masses of silver-grey curls, he now had… well, nothing. The pulsing amber light of the console reflected off the bald skin of his scalp, and she let out another squeak of shock as he wheeled around to face her, and she realised that his eyebrows were missing too. His expression was utterly stricken, and he let the slice of chocolate cake fall from his hand as he pulled the hood of his jumper up, lowering his gaze with embarrassment.

“What…” she said in horror, unable to comprehend the strangeness that was the Doctor with no hair. “What happened?!”

He muttered something that sounded faintly like ‘explosion.’

“Exploding _what_?” Clara asked with suspicion. “What did you do?”

Despite his baldness, the Doctor adopted a look of maddening indignation. 

“Why must you assume that _I _did something? Perhaps I was wronged. Perhaps I was trying to do the right thing. Perhaps I was merely the unwitting witness to some terrible, heinous crime, the casualties of which were my hair and eyebrows.” 

“What did you do?” Clara repeated flatly, and he scowled. 

“I was sonicking the clockwork squirrel and it went boom.” 

“You _idiot_.” 

“I know,” he mumbled contritely. “Believe me, the lack of hair and eyebrows is punishment enough.”

“I’m still cross with you.”

“Why?!” 

“Because your hair was wonderful, and now it’s… gone.” 

“I could regenerate some more,” he said hopefully, as though the idea had only just occurred to him. It probably _had_; for a remarkably bright man, he could be awfully dense. “How about that?”

“Absolutely not,” Clara said firmly. “You’re going to finish your cake, and then we’re going to go on Amazon and buy you a wig. And if you’re really nice and leave me some cake, I’ll even consent to it being the right colour, and not the blue one I was considering as suitable punishment for being an absolute idiot.”


End file.
